


Hey, So Have You Guys Seen the News?

by Saentorine



Series: Avengers Disassembled [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Captain America: The Winter Soldier Spoilers, Darcy is inappropriately involved in Jane's love life, Darcy snark, F/M, Funny, Gen, Marathon Sex, Roommates, Thor prefers going without pants, Voyeurism (comedic), What would the Avengers do without Natasha?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-06
Updated: 2014-05-06
Packaged: 2018-01-23 17:59:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1574567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saentorine/pseuds/Saentorine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now that the Avengers have assembled, why would they ever fight apart? A possible explanation for why Thor wasn’t involved in the events of <i>Captain America: The Winter Soldier</i> even though he's back on Earth.</p>
<p>Jane and Thor make up for their two years apart, Darcy continues to be inappropriately involved in Jane's love life, and Natasha makes an important phone call. Mentions of Loki, Steve Rogers, and Nick Fury.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hey, So Have You Guys Seen the News?

Someone might have thought they were using a hammer, from the banging noise they made.

However, Mjolnir was all the way out in the living room, hanging from the convenient coat hook apparently worthy enough to hold her, and the only hammering at the moment involved . . . well, not the blunt object typically associated with Thor. Thor had pulled the bed away from the wall before they'd begun but sure enough it had rocked its way back against it, the loose headboard now slamming against the wall with each passionate thrust. Jane hoped the neighbors were out for the day or they might be getting a noise complaint call about it later-- and although she was embarrassed by the prospect of explaining to her landlord how the staid and responsible young scientist who had signed the lease had transformed into the kind of girl who had multi-hour sex romps loud enough to disturb the neighbors, she apparently wasn't embarrassed enough to stop Thor in the middle of the action to correct it, either.

The bedroom was essentially in shambles, clothing littering the floor and the lamp on the nightstand lamp completely toppled over. The duvet was still miraculously on the bed, but flipped over and twisted so the tags faced the headboard. Always looking for patterns to correlate, Jane had begun to measure the intensity and duration of their lovemaking by how many of the pictures of Thor’s family had been knocked from the wall as their headboard banged against it. Since Thor had no photographs of his family and Selvig had never bothered to return the children’s anthology of Norse myths (the Puente Antiguo Public Library had surely written off the fine by now?) Thor had taken it and carefully torn out the pages dedicated to Odin, Frigga, and Loki to mount on the wall in some pretty frames he and Jane had found at a flea market. They didn’t look much like the gods Jane had met but they were close enough in spirit to be a comfort to Thor, who from time to time would muse upon them in remembrance.

Granted, Loki was looking a little closer to himself ever since in a moment of drunk irreverence Darcy and Ian had printed out an article on the invasion of New York and Loki’s capture, cut Loki’s head out of the picture, and taped it over the drawing. Thor noticed before Jane had caught them and although his face contorted in a strange way that made her concerned he was going to cry, he ultimately burst out laughing, said it seemed like precisely the sort of thing Loki would have done when they were boys, and left the picture as it was. So Loki remained a strange bobbleheaded photo-drawing hybrid, glowering over his gag, and although she allowed Thor his sentiment she was thankful it was Loki’s picture which usually fell down first.

This was a three-picture day, a clean sweep of mother, father, and brother all now scattered on the floor amongst Jane’s laptop and various clothes that had been tossed aside in a rush and never collected. It being a weekend they’d had the advantage of of a leisurely morning; Jane didn’t need to go to the lab or library today and she could work on her writing her dissertation any old time, which of course meant she would probably put it off until around 9 or 10 pm when Thor would pass out watching one of the earlier seasons of _Top Gear_ he had been in the habit of binge-streaming after dinner. He was fascinated by the strange "earthbound Midgardian ships" as he called them, and Jane dreaded the day he asked to learn to drive one; neither she nor Darcy had driving records to recommend them as tutors, and from what little she remembered of their journey out of Asgard it was clear Thor had not exactly been born with keen driving instincts himself.

So that meant they had as many as 12 hours to devote to nothing but exactly what they were doing now, and they had been at it for four hours already. Of course that wasn't _all_ they had been doing; there had been down periods during which Thor rubbed away a charley horse Jane had gotten from a possibly too-intense orgasm (apparently there was such a thing?), Jane gave him a scalp massage while he closed his eyes and grinned like a content golden retriever, they watched a couple YouTube videos Jane thought were culturally significant enough to share, they joked and teased and whispered sweet nothings to one another and dozed off in each others' arms, but otherwise it had been a pretty steady parade of sex. It vaguely occurred to Jane to worry about soreness, but, eh, sitting was overrated. So was standing. She could do her writing on her laptop while lying on her belly.

After his latest orgasm Thor collapsed against her and pressed his face into her neck, breathing in her scent as she lazily ran her fingers through his tousled golden hair. It took a moment for his breathing to even out again and then he lifted his face over hers and looked so deeply into her eyes it was as if he were afraid he might see the Aether in there again-- but his eyes showed love, not fear. Since the scare with the Aether and the death of his mother and brother, he seemed all the more keenly aware of the significance of Jane's mortality and particularly driven to appreciate their moments together to the fullest.

However, their sweet moment was destroyed when Darcy’s acerbic drawl suddenly rose up from somewhere in the room:

“Hey, so have you guys seen the news?"

Jane sat upright so suddenly she knocked her head into Thor's chin. Thor didn’t feel much of anything but when he heard Jane gasp out a pained “Ah-!” he grasped her face in his hands and planted a long kiss into where he had struck her. Jane gave him a thankful glance and then glared daggers around him towards Darcy, who was standing in the doorway in her pajamas, casually leaning against the frame with a bowl of ice cream in hand.

“What are you doing in here?” Jane asked.

“This cookie dough one is really good,” Darcy said to her spoon, mouth full.

“Do you actually need something, or . . . ?”

“I had a question.”

Recognizing Darcy was going nowhere, Thor climbed off of the bed with the leisurely pace of one oblivious to his nakedness. Jane wasn't sure if the brashly shirtless/pantless thing was an Asgardian custom or just a Thor-knowing-he-was-hot custom, but although it had its perks it was a little uncomfortable at times like this. "Pants, Thor!" she whispered urgently, eyebrows raised over pleading eyes.

Thor shrugged and collected his sweatpants from the crumpled pile on the floor. He didn’t mind nudity or others knowing he had had sex; he was proud of his body and who wasn’t happy to have had sex? He knew Jane wasn’t _really_ embarrassed by their coupling, but for some reason she felt she had to pretend to be. Midgardian girls had some strange hangups about sex, but he couldn't deny the cute way she blushed about when speaking of it was endearing.

Jane maneuvered to put on her camisole and underwear discreetly beneath the duvet while berating Darcy. "What have I told you about _knocking_?"

"I did knock, but you guys were too loud to hear me."

"So you just came in and watched my boyfriend's ass until we were done?"

"I didn't want to interrupt."

"You're such a pervert! Why watch us when you have Intern?-- Ian?"

Darcy shrugged. “He's been kind of hung up lately on this whole threesome idea we had recently. I told him I'd only do it if it were another dude and he's being super picky. Thor, you don't have any hot alien guys you could set us up with, do you? Like maybe that blonde friend of yours? The one who kissed my hand all gentlemanly-like?"

"Fandral is one of my dearest friends and I do not wish to speak ill of him,” said Thor earnestly, “but although he is dashing he is not able to confine his attentions to one lady, and I cannot recommend him."

"He thinks I'm a lady," Darcy looked triumphantly at Jane, rocking cockily from side to side. Then she replied to Thor: "I mean, he doesn't need to stick around. That's kind of the point actually."

"Oh my god, Darcy,” Jane moaned, face in hand.

"What? It's not like you're gonna share this one," she nodded towards Thor.

"Darcy!"

"He's the freaking god of thunder, I'm just sayin'. People used to _worship_ that ass. You got a lot more competition than me."

Thor placed his wide, warm hand on Jane's bare shoulder and squeezed gently. Of course both of them knew Darcy was just teasing, but he wouldn't refuse the opportunity to offer an assuring touch nonetheless.

Darcy took a graceless bite of her now-melting ice cream and continued with her mouth full. "Anyway Thor-- _that_ wasn't the question I was gonna ask you. What I was was gonna ask is: how did you know you had to get to Earth the last two times something was up? You know, when your brother showed up, and when Jane got all sucked into that time warp?"

"I always relied upon Heimdall to inform me of trouble on Earth, or in any of the Nine Realms. He is the watcher of the skies; he sees all.”

"And are you and Heimdall still in touch? Like, would he let you know if there was something weird going on you could help out with?"

“I am as removed from him here as I am the rest of Asgard. He can see me still, alert my father of my goings-on, and open the Bifrost to be should there need be, but I have no way of speaking to him myself now. And I do not know how much interest he takes in Earth's affairs beyond their relevance to Asgard. You have many troubles on Earth, but he knew Loki and Jane were of special concern."

Jane flushed a little. Of course Loki had been of interest to Asgard as a royal family member and war criminal at large in possession of a dangerous artifact-- as well as the sheer peculiarity of having apparently risen from the dead-- but Heimdall had no other reason to watch for Jane than Thor's personal interest. Knowing that _almost_ made up for the two years she had gone without word from him.

"Oh, okay," Darcy nodded, as if this were perfectly reasonable. "So your Avengers buddies . . . do they have you on a beeper or something? For when they need you to help save Earth?"

"Beeper?"

"Or I dunno . . . special app on your phone or something?"

"He still hasn't figured out how to use his phone," Jane laughed awkwardly. After he accidentally crushed his first one and upset her, Thor was afraid to touch the second iPhone Jane had gotten him and it remained a permanent fixture on the nightstand, something of an expensive paperweight.

Thor frowned, realizing his neglect of the device also seemed to upset her. He had tried to figure it out, but why did Midgard make their most important tools so _fragile_? “It is true, I have yet to determine the best way for us to communicate,” he admitted. “But it was no trouble for SHIELD to find me the first time I came to Earth."

"Wait-- you haven't even told them you're here?" Jane asked in shock. Well, at least she knew neglecting to visit her while he was on Earth last time was nothing _personal_ . . .

"I am certain they must know by now. If something were afoot I would hear of it.”

"You spend all day in the apartment watching Netflix and you don't know how to use the phone or internet. How would you hear of it?" Jane pointed out. She didn't mean to sound critical and of course she preferred Thor staying right where he was . . . but if he needed to be somewhere, she wouldn't want to be the one responsible for keeping him away. Thor took his sense of duty very seriously and it was one of the many things she loved about him.

"So in that case,” Darcy started again, “you probably _didn't_ know that your America friend was just on the news having been filmed in some crazy street fight with a bunch of random soldiers and a guy with a metal arm in the middle of Washington DC, huh?”

"What, Darcy, are you kidding me?" Once again Jane jumped so suddenly she almost injured herself, practically falling off the bed and immediately stumbling over her laptop on the floor. “Why didn't you tell us?"

"I knocked, remember? You’re the one who was freaking out at me for 10 minutes about it. I was just trying to help Thor save the world, jeez."

Jane darted into the living room, followed by quickly by Thor and finally Darcy, who took her time as if it were impossible to walk and take bites of ice cream at the same time.

Jane and Darcy had never been neat living together, but the addition of Thor had advanced the level of filth from "scummy bachelorette pad" to "possible biohazard." With trash collection only once a week they ran out of space to store all of their fish and chips wrappings, curry takeaway containers, and pizza boxes (Thor needed two pies to himself), so garbage piled high in their bin and spilled over into bags laid around the tiny kitchen. Thor did his part to minimize the impact of his drinking, diligently smashing down his beer cans-- usually against his forehead, "like the High King of the Frat Boys!" Darcy cheered-- but centuries of tolerance to Asgardian mead meant even the spoils of a single night of beer drinking could fill an entire recycle bag, and they had had to make frequent embarrassed calls to city waste management to request more. And amongst all the notebooks and hand-drawn charts related to Jane's dissertation, the coffee table was also littered with metallic wrappers testament to Thor's ongoing quest to find the best shawarma joint in London, vowing that when the Avengers came to visit he would treat them to their favorite.

Thor wasn't solely to blame, however. Jane felt a little ashamed acknowledging she had also been a lot more . . . distracted . . . from tidying up than she had been before he had returned. But between science _and_ Thor, who had time for sweeping or scrubbing a toilet?

Sweeping aside a newspaper, box of cereal, and a half-empty bag of chips so she could sit on the couch, Jane turned up the volume on the TV still set to the news channel Darcy had been watching and waiting for them to return to the segment.

"This is the real television, this one?" Thor asked, settling down beside her and wrapping an arm around her tense shoulders.

"Yes, this is the real one," Jane replied. After he had hounded her with questions about the several hundred alien invasions that had predated the Chitauri attack on New York and whether he ought to suggest Fury call upon Indiana Jones or the man in the blue telephone box to join the Avengers, she had had to explain very firmly that not everything that he could make appear on the screen was current or historical fact.

“Oh, and I think they were saying that one guy—you know, the guy with the eye patch . . . he’s dead, or something,” Darcy added as more details came to her.

“Fury?” Thor looked truly distressed for the first time and Jane instinctively squeezed his knee to console him. “What fate has befallen him?”

“I don’t know, they just said he was probably dead! Everybody was shooting each other and stuff, he probably got shot.”

"It's on again!" Jane cried as the newscaster appeared on screen, the wreckage of what had apparently been a substantial urban battle. It was nothing to the level of New York with its collapsed buildings and wreckage spanning the entire width of Manhattan, but nonetheless there were ruined and flipped cars, smoke, shrapnel, and bullet holes everywhere. She could barely make out what she was saying over the throb of blood in her ears, but the image of newscaster cut away to a fuzzy image of Captain America, in uniform but disarmed and on his knees with a soldier pointing a gun to his head execution-style.

She could feel Thor tense beside her, and as soon as the newscaster went on to say something about him having been taken into custody regarding an internal security breach within SHIELD-- and therefore, he was alive-- Thor leaped to his feet and made for Mjolnir hanging by the door.

"Thor, _wait_ ," Jane pleaded. "That could have happened hours ago, you don't know where they've taken him."

Thor had never known what it was like to feel helpless watching disaster unfold on a television screen; as he said, Heimdall had done the watching for him and Thor remained blissfully ignorant until he was told-- and once he knew, he was there. He had been _in_ the battle of New York, not like Jane sitting stunned in this very living room about to vomit in terror on his behalf every time she caught a glance of him battling on screen, knowing even Darcy was scared when the wittiest thing she could come up with was an insensitive "Damn, it's like 9/11 on crack." He had found Jane within hours of her infection with the Aether, he had done everything he could to get to Frigga in time, and Loki had barely hit the ground before he was in Thor's arms. Even now, a hemisphere away and with every indication that the altercation was already over, his instinct was to dash into the fray to find his friend, not stand idly by. Granted, he'd flown much further distances to save loves ones in the past and he had a magical hammer and the near-invincible body of a god, but Jane's heart ached on his behalf knowing that there were some things he couldn't help, even if he still hadn't accepted it.

"I must find him."

"Thor, stop, be rational and listen to what they're saying; it's complicated, they're saying he might have been involved with some breach in SHIELD security."

"And I know he's your friend, man," Darcy consoled, "but sometimes friends can be real assholes. I was friends with this bitch in college who--"

"Steve would never betray his friends or the people he has sworn to protect!" Thor thundered defensively and both girls recoiled, momentarily afraid of a lightning bolt bursting forth in the tiny apartment. However, instead of thunder, there came a faint rocking beat from within a small pile of shawarma wrappers on the coffee table.

"My phone," said Jane, shuffling through the wrappers to find it. Her screen displayed it was a blocked number which she normally would have let ring out, but the adrenaline of the situation on TV made her pick up by instinct.

“Is this Jane Foster?” asked a woman’s voice. The voice was assertive but friendly, and something told her she should know it though she couldn’t immediately place why.

“Y-yes?” she answered hesitantly, hoping it wasn’t anyone sinister connected to the violence on TV. Or city waste management berating them for overflowing their bins again. Or her landlord about the noise.

The woman breathed a relieved sigh. “I figured I would have better luck tracking down your number than hoping Thor had figured out cell phones. Him and Steve, I swear. It’s Natasha, by the way.”

“Wait, _Black Widow_ Natasha?” Jane asked, feeling starstruck. Thor raised his eyebrows with curiosity, pausing with his hand over Mjolnir.

“There’s more than a few other names I've gone by as well, but yeah, that’s the one."

"Wait, I shouldn't have said that on the telephone, should I? Oh crap! I'm sorry, I'm not really up on the espionage etiquette . . . "

“It’s okay,” Natasha laughed. “I'm getting rid of this phone in a second anyway and I know more than a few ways to keep a call from being traced. But can I talk to Thor?”

“Yes, of course, he’s right here,” Jane replied, glancing over to him. Thor heard but stared frantically at the phone as if Jane were about to hand him a mounted scorpion. “But uh . . . let me put us on speakerphone. It’s just me and my roommate Darcy here—and she was there for the whole Malekith thing.”

“Yeah . . . I’m sorry I missed that,” Natasha apologized genuinely. "I’m glad you guys had it under control. Things with SHIELD have been . . . weird.”

“I’m putting you on speaker now. Here’s Thor.”

Jane set the phone on the table and Thor came closer. “Natasha?”

“Hi Thor. Thanks for telling us you were back on the planet and everything.”

“Was it not made clear enough by the state in which I left London?” Thor quipped. Darcy wrinkled her nose and grinned in silent appreciation of his subtle snark.

“I thought your brother was the one with the smart mouth,” Natasha replied.

"Do you know of what happened to Steve?"

"That's why I'm calling; Steve is fine and he's with me. I don't know what you saw on the news but I think they're trying to make him out like some kind of bad guy, and that's not true; it's a manipulation. I mean, you know Steve."

"I do," Thor replied firmly, with a slightly accusatory glance towards Darcy.

"What? I'm just saying, my friend Nicole was a bitch!" she defended quietly to Jane out of range of the phone.

Thor swallowed tentatively and then asked his next question. “Is Fury . . . ?”

Natasha was quiet for a moment, but they could hear the static on the line informing them the call was still in place. Then finally: “I can’t go into much detail, but don’t worry so much about who you think is dead. Anyone who you think is dead. I don’t really even know what to believe anymore.”

It was a rather insensitive thing to say to someone who had witnessed the death of two family members on his own arms mere months ago, but Natasha had no way of knowing about that. “I won’t,” he replied hollowly.

“But Thor?”

“Yes?”

“I also called to tell you that what you really need to do right now is stay put, okay? Keep lying low in London and don't call attention to yourself, unless you're directly threatened. No matter what happens to anyone else-- and some more stuff is probably going to happen, I can already warn you. Don’t try to contact SHIELD, and don’t just trust just anyone who says they’re with them. If the Avengers are going to assemble again you’ll hear it from me, one of the guys, Maria—somebody we already know, alright?”

“I understand,” Thor replied simply, though his face reflected an abundance of questions.

"I know it's hard being out of the loop like this, and it's weird we're not all working together right now after all the trouble of getting together in the first place. But I'm convinced, and Fury was convinced, that it's safer if we compartmentalize."

Thor didn't look terribly impressed with this idea, but he nodded. Jane was about to advise him that Natasha couldn't hear him unless he spoke, but Natasha seemed to understand nonetheless.

“Okay, well I’ve got to go," she said. "Stay safe, alright? I’m sure we’ll see each other soon.”

"And you as well, Natasha. Thank you."

The call finished and they were left sitting in silence as the news broke for a commercial break, a voice shouting about half-priced Takeout Tuesdays about three times louder and five times more chipper than the newscaster had been.

"Wow, we really have been out of it," Darcy remarked flatly, chewing nervously on one of the stale chips. "Anyone want to order takeout or something?"

**Author's Note:**

> Having only seen Captain America: The Winter Soldier once (so far) I'm not 100% sure the timeline on all this makes sense, but I hope it's not too off base.
> 
> Also, I have to credit the bit about Thor mistaking alien invasion movies as human history to [Texts from Superheroes](http://textsfromsuperheroes.com/post/54598531782). I think Thor probably needs a list as much as Steve does . . .

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Special Delivery](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1820773) by [Saentorine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saentorine/pseuds/Saentorine)




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